Real estate investing courses have always been big sellers on infomercials, and now all over the internet. You find them on Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and anywhere you look after you've done a search for them online.
Real estate investing isn't exactly a simple business you can run with your computer. Although, there was a course I looked into recently that claimed to allow you to make money in real estate with your computer without even leaving home.
It turned out to be a plan to do real estate "wholesaling", where you get properties under contract, and then try to sell the contract to a "real" investor. For the most part you could supposedly do most everything with your computer. The actual methods they recommended weren't really anything special though. Basically using Zillow, Craigslist and Facebook ads. These do qualify as using your computer, but that's about the extent of it. So I didn't really learn any secret methods for finding properties to buy dirt cheap, which is obviously the hardest but most important part of the plan.
I did at least learn some tips on selling properties as quickly as possible. And one thing I found out on my own is the importance of proper home staging. This is literally arranging the inside of the house to appear completely furnished and ready to live in. The idea is to keep the house from looking either too empty, or too over cluttered with stuff that needs to go.
So the importance of home staging can't be underestimated. According to Home Staging Delaware, properties that are staged well sell faster and for higher prices than their non-staged comparable properties. The money you spend to do this preparation (or hire someone to do it for you) is usually much less than what you would probably lose by having to lower the selling price to get more decent offers, so it's a no brainer kind of decision.
So whether or not you believe you could buy and sell real estate from home at your computer...trust me on the importance of home staging when you happen to be selling a property!
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Thursday, January 12, 2017
eBay Keeps Going and Going
Getting back to basics...eBay is still one of the best ways to make money with your computer. So many other online auction sites that have tried to compete with eBay have come and gone over the years, but eBay just keeps going and going. It's evolved a little bit over time, but it's still basically the same as it's always been.
If you have a few things you'd like to sell and have never tried it, check out eBay.com. And if you might have forgotten how quick and easy it can be to sell things on it, maybe you should give it fresh look. eBay is still one of my favorite ways to sell things when I need to.
There's also another way to make money using eBay other than simply selling things yourself, which a lot of people aren't even aware of. You can register to be an eBay affiliate, and when people buy something using your unique link you'll earn a small commission. Check out http://pages.ebay.com/affiliate/referral.html to learn all the details.
If you have a few things you'd like to sell and have never tried it, check out eBay.com. And if you might have forgotten how quick and easy it can be to sell things on it, maybe you should give it fresh look. eBay is still one of my favorite ways to sell things when I need to.
There's also another way to make money using eBay other than simply selling things yourself, which a lot of people aren't even aware of. You can register to be an eBay affiliate, and when people buy something using your unique link you'll earn a small commission. Check out http://pages.ebay.com/affiliate/referral.html to learn all the details.
Friday, June 03, 2016
How To Make Money With Your Tablet or Smartphone
A lot of changes have occurred since I first started this blog nearly ten years ago. (Wow, how time flies!)
The internet has grown into something seemingly larger than life itself - even available for free in many "hotspots" that offer free wifi.
Google has become a household word and the most famous search engine of choice, even being used as a verb for finding whatever information you're looking for. No need to wrack your brain to try to remember any details from the past or present...just Google it in seconds.
Computer hardware itself has changed a lot, too. The equipment has become smaller and wireless, and memory storage is not only smaller in size but huge in capacity. In fact, computers have almost been replaced now by laptops, tablets and even smartphones.
I know I titled this blog "How To Make Money With Your Computer", but now it seems appropriate to turn our attention to ways you can make money with what everyone is using NOW:
The internet has grown into something seemingly larger than life itself - even available for free in many "hotspots" that offer free wifi.
Google has become a household word and the most famous search engine of choice, even being used as a verb for finding whatever information you're looking for. No need to wrack your brain to try to remember any details from the past or present...just Google it in seconds.
Computer hardware itself has changed a lot, too. The equipment has become smaller and wireless, and memory storage is not only smaller in size but huge in capacity. In fact, computers have almost been replaced now by laptops, tablets and even smartphones.
I know I titled this blog "How To Make Money With Your Computer", but now it seems appropriate to turn our attention to ways you can make money with what everyone is using NOW:
Tablets and Smartphones!
One of the most obvious ways to make money with your tablet or smartphone is designing and creating new apps. No doubt, there is a lot of competition in this field now, but there's always room for more. Nobody can get enough apps, and they're usually free to download until you buy a more expanded version, so everybody loves to try new ones.
However, unless you're an actual programmer, you'll need to hire someone to do the hard part and get your app idea created for you, so you'll need to invest some money to do so. But hey, it takes money to make money, and all businesses require at least a small amount of money to get started, so this is no different. Look to negotiate a fair price with a private party so it's a win-win deal for both of you.
Some good websites to find people to work with on your app ideas are freelancer.com and elance.com, and also fiverr.com for smaller jobs.
There are also quite a few existing apps that are designed to help you make money in various ways. You can easily find them yourself by "Googling" for them, of course, but here are just a few good ones that I've found:
Gigwalk, GigGo, Field Agent, Fiverr, Earn Money/Recharge, QuickCash, InBoxDollars
You can also sell your stuff with apps like Wallapop, Letgo, OfferUp, Etsy, VarageSale, as well as CraigsList and Ebay. (Some things never change!) And some of the worlds most popular social networks like Facebook and Instagram are being used by many people to sell things. Facebook even allows placement of highly targeted ads based on whatever reader interests you want to sell to.
There are tons things people are doing to make money, so you can do it too! The more ideas you look for, the more you can find. So dive in and give a few of these a try to get started!
Good luck, and have fun making money with your smartphone or tablet!
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
BlinkWeb.com: A New, Free Website Builder by Matt Callen
I just found out about a new, free website builder site that's really worth recommending called BlinkWeb.com. It's a free website builder that you can use online to create your own website. And it's been designed to be so easy to use that there's really no more excuse for anyone who's been wanting to build a website to continue putting it off.
BlinkWeb was created by Brad and Matt Callen, who are well known in the internet marketing world. Just Google their names and you'll see that. BlinkWeb uses a "drag and drop" kind of interface where you can choose the type of site you want to create, whether it be a blog, a sales page, or just a regular content type of website. Then you can choose from many different layouts, or templates, and start inserting the stuff you want, wherever you want it to appear on the page. And then - "Presto!" - you have a website built within minutes in whatever style you'd like.
They also have an actual mini-course right on the site on internet marketing, and creating niche information products, etc. There's probably more information and good advice there than you'd find find in so many of those get rich schemes that are always being advertised with high price tags...and yet they give all this information away for free, just to help you get started after you sign up.
But the best news is that BlinkWeb is actually totally free to use and play with all you want. And when you're satisfied with the site you've created, you can either have it hosted right there on their own servers very inexpensively, or you can download your new website as a zip file and save it to your own computer, ready to upload to your own web server.
If you're like me, you're probably wondering how they make their money though, since it's totally free to use. The answer is that they also offer very reasonably priced web hosting, and a big percentage of users will probably opt for that, since they make it so easy to do.
But even if you don't use their hosting, they still get you for a subscription fee to be able to download your completed sites, which you don't find out about until you hit the download button.
So the truth about BlinkWeb is that it's not really totally free to use, like they claim. It's free to join and use - but if you want to keep what you create with it, you do have to pay a small fee to do so. But I think that's fair - especially since you don't have to pay anything before you see what you can create with it first.
They have several different "subscription" options to chose from for downloading. As of this writing, they offer unlimited downloads by the day for only $9.95, or one month for $19.95. (That gives you plenty of time if you have a bunch of sites you want to create.) Plus, they even offer a lifetime subcription for totally unlimited site downloads, all for a single one-time fee. Then you're set to create all the sites you want!
So I think it's pretty brilliant the way it all ties together. Even casual users can now create their own professional looking websites with no help from expensive web designers; and BlinkWeb makes some money on the back end from subscriptions and the huge number of sites that are sure to be hosted right there with them.
It just launched earlier this year (2008), and they say over 27,000 sites have already been created with it - so word must be spreading pretty fast. That's what happens when somebody comes up with an idea that lots of people have been waiting to see.
So if you've been looking to do what I've been dabbling with myself, and that's create some websites to build a business around, this BlinkWeb could be a huge help to you. It's totally free to join and try out, so why not give it a whirl and see what you might be able to create?
Good luck with carving out your own little corner of the internet world!
BlinkWeb was created by Brad and Matt Callen, who are well known in the internet marketing world. Just Google their names and you'll see that. BlinkWeb uses a "drag and drop" kind of interface where you can choose the type of site you want to create, whether it be a blog, a sales page, or just a regular content type of website. Then you can choose from many different layouts, or templates, and start inserting the stuff you want, wherever you want it to appear on the page. And then - "Presto!" - you have a website built within minutes in whatever style you'd like.
They also have an actual mini-course right on the site on internet marketing, and creating niche information products, etc. There's probably more information and good advice there than you'd find find in so many of those get rich schemes that are always being advertised with high price tags...and yet they give all this information away for free, just to help you get started after you sign up.
But the best news is that BlinkWeb is actually totally free to use and play with all you want. And when you're satisfied with the site you've created, you can either have it hosted right there on their own servers very inexpensively, or you can download your new website as a zip file and save it to your own computer, ready to upload to your own web server.
If you're like me, you're probably wondering how they make their money though, since it's totally free to use. The answer is that they also offer very reasonably priced web hosting, and a big percentage of users will probably opt for that, since they make it so easy to do.
But even if you don't use their hosting, they still get you for a subscription fee to be able to download your completed sites, which you don't find out about until you hit the download button.
So the truth about BlinkWeb is that it's not really totally free to use, like they claim. It's free to join and use - but if you want to keep what you create with it, you do have to pay a small fee to do so. But I think that's fair - especially since you don't have to pay anything before you see what you can create with it first.
They have several different "subscription" options to chose from for downloading. As of this writing, they offer unlimited downloads by the day for only $9.95, or one month for $19.95. (That gives you plenty of time if you have a bunch of sites you want to create.) Plus, they even offer a lifetime subcription for totally unlimited site downloads, all for a single one-time fee. Then you're set to create all the sites you want!
So I think it's pretty brilliant the way it all ties together. Even casual users can now create their own professional looking websites with no help from expensive web designers; and BlinkWeb makes some money on the back end from subscriptions and the huge number of sites that are sure to be hosted right there with them.
It just launched earlier this year (2008), and they say over 27,000 sites have already been created with it - so word must be spreading pretty fast. That's what happens when somebody comes up with an idea that lots of people have been waiting to see.
So if you've been looking to do what I've been dabbling with myself, and that's create some websites to build a business around, this BlinkWeb could be a huge help to you. It's totally free to join and try out, so why not give it a whirl and see what you might be able to create?
Good luck with carving out your own little corner of the internet world!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Pay Per Click Advertising - It's Trickier Than I Thought
Pay Per Click advertising is something I always thought was the easiest, most sure-fire way to get an avalanche of instant traffic to your websites...and always there, whenever you're ready for it. (And willing to pay a little bit for it of course, too.) So until the last couple of weeks I had never even dabbled with it at all. Since I do have a handful or so of websites put together now, I figured it's time to direct some traffic to them and see what happens. Should be a piece of cake, right?
As it turns out, there's a lot more to pay per click advertising than I realized. I had the introductory credits to use toward Google, Yahoo and MSN that you get when you open an account with BlueHost, so I figured that using those would be a good excuse to get started. I'm not used to spending ANY money on these little business experiments of mine, but you've got to start somewhere I guess!
I was pleasantly surprised that MSN only requires you to put $5 of your own money into the account to get the $30 credit added when you open it. Even I didn't mind that, being the cheapskate I am! :) Yahoo calls for more like $30, but they add another $50 to it. I haven't tried Google yet, but it's similar to Yahoo I think. And it's surprisingly quick and easy to actually open the accounts; it's all done entirely online.
Quick is the keyword, though, because before you know it they start prompting you to enter your first text ad to start with. Suddenly you find yourself thrown into the ad writing business - which is like a whole art of its own. Right on the spot I'm sitting there, trying to draw on all the ad writing tips I've ever learned to come up with an ad that makes some sort of sense.
Then, of course, they ask you to enter all of the keywords you want to have your ad matched to, and even offer you the option to write several more ads to test against each other, which I was totally unprepared for as well! :) The good news is that you can always change your ads, add more, delete some or all, or even just scrap them all and start over again anytime you want. So there's really no pressure.
It's pretty cool though. I find it to be a lot like placing regular classified ads. Except these ads go live within minutes - so you can start seeing results almost immediately. It's kind of neat how websites that have been sitting, unknown to everyone in the world other than myself, can almost instantly begin registering visitors. (And even Google AdSense clicks, which is much more exciting!)
The volume of traffic from the pay per click ads, however, hasn't been what I expected so far. (In the little bit I've tried so far, anyway.) I was expecting more, although I'm sure the popularity of your subject matter makes a huge difference, and also how much you're willing to pay per click. Pay more and your ad appears at or around the top of your competition; pay only the minimum bid amount (which is what I did) and your ad may hardly ever appear, depending on how many competing ads are out there. But the minimum is only 10 cents per click for Yahoo, and a mere 5 cents for MSN. Prices like those do give you a fair chance to make a profit, even if you don't get as many visitors.
The real challenge is...AdSense ads sometimes don't even pay that much per click. You never really know what they'll pay until they're clicked. Some ads might pay a dollar or more on the same site as other ads that only pay a few pennies, so it's hard to predict. Naturally, the idea is that hopefully in the end you receive more than you pay for all those paid visitors. But when your sites rely mostly on AdSense for revenue like the ones I've made so far, it looks like it might be tough to turn a decent profit. Add in a few affiliate sales to the mix here and there, or maybe sales of your own products, etc., and it should get easier.
So you need to bid at or near the minimum per click to give it a chance to be profitable, yet at that rate the amount of traffic you receive just isn't very impressive. I guess the answer to that still goes back to my original idea of just creating LOTS of different sites until it all starts adding up to something worthwhile.
So while pay per click advertising is a super fast way to direct some traffic to your websites...unless you're willing to pay a higher amount per visitor, there are probably better ways to create traffic. I haven't tried paid banner or text ads on other websites yet, but those might be a better choice in some cases. For now though, I'm going to continue experimenting with these pay per clicks and see what else I can learn. (And hopefully earn!)
As it turns out, there's a lot more to pay per click advertising than I realized. I had the introductory credits to use toward Google, Yahoo and MSN that you get when you open an account with BlueHost, so I figured that using those would be a good excuse to get started. I'm not used to spending ANY money on these little business experiments of mine, but you've got to start somewhere I guess!
I was pleasantly surprised that MSN only requires you to put $5 of your own money into the account to get the $30 credit added when you open it. Even I didn't mind that, being the cheapskate I am! :) Yahoo calls for more like $30, but they add another $50 to it. I haven't tried Google yet, but it's similar to Yahoo I think. And it's surprisingly quick and easy to actually open the accounts; it's all done entirely online.
Quick is the keyword, though, because before you know it they start prompting you to enter your first text ad to start with. Suddenly you find yourself thrown into the ad writing business - which is like a whole art of its own. Right on the spot I'm sitting there, trying to draw on all the ad writing tips I've ever learned to come up with an ad that makes some sort of sense.
Then, of course, they ask you to enter all of the keywords you want to have your ad matched to, and even offer you the option to write several more ads to test against each other, which I was totally unprepared for as well! :) The good news is that you can always change your ads, add more, delete some or all, or even just scrap them all and start over again anytime you want. So there's really no pressure.
It's pretty cool though. I find it to be a lot like placing regular classified ads. Except these ads go live within minutes - so you can start seeing results almost immediately. It's kind of neat how websites that have been sitting, unknown to everyone in the world other than myself, can almost instantly begin registering visitors. (And even Google AdSense clicks, which is much more exciting!)
The volume of traffic from the pay per click ads, however, hasn't been what I expected so far. (In the little bit I've tried so far, anyway.) I was expecting more, although I'm sure the popularity of your subject matter makes a huge difference, and also how much you're willing to pay per click. Pay more and your ad appears at or around the top of your competition; pay only the minimum bid amount (which is what I did) and your ad may hardly ever appear, depending on how many competing ads are out there. But the minimum is only 10 cents per click for Yahoo, and a mere 5 cents for MSN. Prices like those do give you a fair chance to make a profit, even if you don't get as many visitors.
The real challenge is...AdSense ads sometimes don't even pay that much per click. You never really know what they'll pay until they're clicked. Some ads might pay a dollar or more on the same site as other ads that only pay a few pennies, so it's hard to predict. Naturally, the idea is that hopefully in the end you receive more than you pay for all those paid visitors. But when your sites rely mostly on AdSense for revenue like the ones I've made so far, it looks like it might be tough to turn a decent profit. Add in a few affiliate sales to the mix here and there, or maybe sales of your own products, etc., and it should get easier.
So you need to bid at or near the minimum per click to give it a chance to be profitable, yet at that rate the amount of traffic you receive just isn't very impressive. I guess the answer to that still goes back to my original idea of just creating LOTS of different sites until it all starts adding up to something worthwhile.
So while pay per click advertising is a super fast way to direct some traffic to your websites...unless you're willing to pay a higher amount per visitor, there are probably better ways to create traffic. I haven't tried paid banner or text ads on other websites yet, but those might be a better choice in some cases. For now though, I'm going to continue experimenting with these pay per clicks and see what else I can learn. (And hopefully earn!)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Free Online Press Releases
I just found a great website that allows you to post press releases online, totally free of charge. It's a great way to promote new websites as you create them, which I plan to do, or whatever new products you might be marketing, etc.
You can find it here at: Free-Press-Release.com
There are many other similar websites that charge varying amounts for allowing you to post press releases, but this one really does offer totally free listings. Of course, they also give you the option to pay for a premier version which includes greater promotion, etc., but that's only an option that they make available if you choose to use it. Check it out!
You can find it here at: Free-Press-Release.com
There are many other similar websites that charge varying amounts for allowing you to post press releases, but this one really does offer totally free listings. Of course, they also give you the option to pay for a premier version which includes greater promotion, etc., but that's only an option that they make available if you choose to use it. Check it out!
Friday, March 28, 2008
I've Been Busy Lately!
I haven't posted here in about a month - wow how time flies when you're having fun. (And when you've been busy!)
I've been quite busy lately, working on what I've settled on as my decision on what to apply myself to, as far as money making endeavors.
Looking through my (mostly junk) emails I came across something about a case study on someone's success at creating profitable websites. It's like, yeah, what else is new? But in this case it was impressive enough sounding that I ended up reading it and even studying it, trying to get the main idea of what has worked for the person who wrote the article.
Without actually promoting it for the guy, I'll just describe it as a software program that "creates" websites in a mostly automated way. Not fully, but mostly anyway. And the main idea I took from this article was that the key to the author's success was not so much that he did everything right, but that he did lots of what he did find to work.
More specifically, he created not just a few, but several hundred websites that consistently made at least small amounts of money each day. The result, in his case, was supposedly a consistent $15,000+ monthly income after only about six months of work. (Yes, I'd say that's something worth looking into, wouldn't you?!)
Needless to say, about the only way you could pull this off is to use something that does, in fact, automate the whole web site creation process so that it enables you to create lots of websites fairly quickly. And true to my usual form, I didn't just take this guy's word on what is the best program to use to accomplish this, but instead started searching a bit on my own for something I could use myself to get similar results.
And guess what? I found something else that I think is even much better than what that person was promoting. The one I found actually creates streaming video sites on whatever subject you choose, rather than just collections of free articles from around the web. And I think most people find streaming videos about the subjects they're interested in more exciting that just rehashed articles that can be found all over the place already.
So just finding this motivated me to finally open a web hosting account with BlueHost, which is the one that is highly recommended by Holly Mann, who uses the service for her own sites. After doing a lot of research on different web hosting companies, I decided that this was a good one to choose because not only are they one of the least expensive services for what they offer, (as low as $6.95 per month), but they also allow an unlimited number of subdomains for any domain names you host through them. And since I plan on creating a lot of websites here very shortly, this is important. Plus, an added bonus is that your first domain name is on them - it's free of annual fees for as long as you keep your account, which is nice.
I've been quite busy lately, working on what I've settled on as my decision on what to apply myself to, as far as money making endeavors.
Looking through my (mostly junk) emails I came across something about a case study on someone's success at creating profitable websites. It's like, yeah, what else is new? But in this case it was impressive enough sounding that I ended up reading it and even studying it, trying to get the main idea of what has worked for the person who wrote the article.
Without actually promoting it for the guy, I'll just describe it as a software program that "creates" websites in a mostly automated way. Not fully, but mostly anyway. And the main idea I took from this article was that the key to the author's success was not so much that he did everything right, but that he did lots of what he did find to work.
More specifically, he created not just a few, but several hundred websites that consistently made at least small amounts of money each day. The result, in his case, was supposedly a consistent $15,000+ monthly income after only about six months of work. (Yes, I'd say that's something worth looking into, wouldn't you?!)
Needless to say, about the only way you could pull this off is to use something that does, in fact, automate the whole web site creation process so that it enables you to create lots of websites fairly quickly. And true to my usual form, I didn't just take this guy's word on what is the best program to use to accomplish this, but instead started searching a bit on my own for something I could use myself to get similar results.
And guess what? I found something else that I think is even much better than what that person was promoting. The one I found actually creates streaming video sites on whatever subject you choose, rather than just collections of free articles from around the web. And I think most people find streaming videos about the subjects they're interested in more exciting that just rehashed articles that can be found all over the place already.
So just finding this motivated me to finally open a web hosting account with BlueHost, which is the one that is highly recommended by Holly Mann, who uses the service for her own sites. After doing a lot of research on different web hosting companies, I decided that this was a good one to choose because not only are they one of the least expensive services for what they offer, (as low as $6.95 per month), but they also allow an unlimited number of subdomains for any domain names you host through them. And since I plan on creating a lot of websites here very shortly, this is important. Plus, an added bonus is that your first domain name is on them - it's free of annual fees for as long as you keep your account, which is nice.
Shortly after setting that up, I've now already created 3 web sites so far, all decked out with Google AdSense ads, ClickBank ads and even Amazon ads - all placed automatically by the program! It's really great, since it's so easy to go from start to finish all in one sitting. So I can really see the possibility of setting up dozens or even hundreds of similar sites before long. In fact, I now PLAN on doing so!
So maybe now you can see why I've been so busy lately that I haven't even posted here for a whole month! In fact, to be honest, I actually don't see myself continuing to post here all that often from here on, since there's really not much of any need to. I think I've found what I've been looking for since I started this blog. So I'll be busy doing what I should be doing, and that's creating more and more new and unique websites to make money with. Once they're set up and online, they don't go anywhere - they just keep making more money without doing much of anything to them. Truly "Auto-Pilot" as one of the latest internet marketing cliches goes!
OK...I guess I won't keep it a secret. I wasn't really planning on revealing this here when I started writing this post, but if you'd like to check this thing out for yourself you'll see that I'm not exaggerating. The program I've been using is called Instant Video Site Creator, and on their website they even include a few sample video sites that they've created as examples of what you can do with the program.
So maybe now you can see why I've been so busy lately that I haven't even posted here for a whole month! In fact, to be honest, I actually don't see myself continuing to post here all that often from here on, since there's really not much of any need to. I think I've found what I've been looking for since I started this blog. So I'll be busy doing what I should be doing, and that's creating more and more new and unique websites to make money with. Once they're set up and online, they don't go anywhere - they just keep making more money without doing much of anything to them. Truly "Auto-Pilot" as one of the latest internet marketing cliches goes!
OK...I guess I won't keep it a secret. I wasn't really planning on revealing this here when I started writing this post, but if you'd like to check this thing out for yourself you'll see that I'm not exaggerating. The program I've been using is called Instant Video Site Creator, and on their website they even include a few sample video sites that they've created as examples of what you can do with the program.
Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about the possibilities! So if I'm not posting on here very often anymore, you'll know what I'm up to! I plan to take this opportunity to get lots of sites up and online and start building my own personal "virtual real estate" empire on the web. I figure whether I really end up having the kind of success that other guy had or not, I'm going to give it an honest effort and find out for myself what's really possible.
Wish me luck! And of course, good luck to you as well, if you decide to try the same thing. Take care!
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Seasonal eBay Toy Sales (My Own Results)
A couple of months ago I posted about the toy selling guide I had ordered and my plans to follow it, buying toys just to resell closer to Christmas. So in case anyone happens to be curious about how it turned out, here are the final results after eventually returning quite a few items that I didn't sell. (The numbers are all rounded off to keep it simple.)
Total profit after all eBay, PayPal and shipping expenses was about $70. This was after purchasing about $400 worth of toys. Only $138 worth of them were actually sold, but the remaining $262 or so were returned to the stores I purchased them from for the same price.
So the $70 profit sounds a lot better on an investment of $138 than it does on $400, but that's really the amount I had at risk. (If you want to call it that.) But that was a lot of work I did just for that $70 profit - lots of picture taking, eBay item description writing, packing and shipping...not to mention the time I spent in the stores, both buying and returning the items that didn't get sold.
Plus, when you figure in that I also paid $30 for the ebook that inspired me to do all this, it's more like only a $40 profit. So was it all worth it?
Well...that's $40 that I wouldn't have had if I didn't do it. But considering the amount of work that was involved...I think I'd rather be the one selling the ebooks for $30 each than just doing what the ebook recommends! (Which, time and time again, is usually the case with money making plans that are being sold.) When will I ever learn?!
Total profit after all eBay, PayPal and shipping expenses was about $70. This was after purchasing about $400 worth of toys. Only $138 worth of them were actually sold, but the remaining $262 or so were returned to the stores I purchased them from for the same price.
So the $70 profit sounds a lot better on an investment of $138 than it does on $400, but that's really the amount I had at risk. (If you want to call it that.) But that was a lot of work I did just for that $70 profit - lots of picture taking, eBay item description writing, packing and shipping...not to mention the time I spent in the stores, both buying and returning the items that didn't get sold.
Plus, when you figure in that I also paid $30 for the ebook that inspired me to do all this, it's more like only a $40 profit. So was it all worth it?
Well...that's $40 that I wouldn't have had if I didn't do it. But considering the amount of work that was involved...I think I'd rather be the one selling the ebooks for $30 each than just doing what the ebook recommends! (Which, time and time again, is usually the case with money making plans that are being sold.) When will I ever learn?!
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Avoiding Get Rich Scams
Happy New Year!
How are your new year's resolutions going so far?
I'm not really very big on actual new year's resolutions myself, but I do always feel like the start of the new year is a great time to re-evaluate your goals and plans. So if you realize you've been drifting away from focusing on what's important, it's a good time to get back on track.
One of my usual goals is to continue to research new ways to make money, and this year is no different in that way. But I also have to be careful not to be TOO open-minded about money making schemes that are being advertised. As negative as it sounds, most of them are either just not worth the money they cost, or worse - even downright ripoffs.
For example...
Just yesterday I spent my whole lunch hour reading one of those little booklets that's really just a big sales pitch for a money making program. In this case, it was titled "The Overnight Millionaire", by Russ Dalbey. I get these from him every so often, and I had seen some derogatory comments about his products before, so I usually just throw them out. But here it is, Happy New Year time, so I thought I'd read this one anyway.
Before long, it sounded so good that I had halfway decided to order the thing. (For about $150.) But when I got back to work I took a quick look on Google to see what I might find about it.
Turns out, this guy was a genuine scam artist and eventually was sued and court ordered to stop all the infomercials that were selling the program.
Needless to say, instantly the temptation to order it was gone! Although, replacing it was the rather depressing realization that the existence of easy, get rich quick plans that you can buy and put into action immediately is probably just a total hoax.
It's almost like, is there no truth being sold out there? Is there really no way to make a lot of money easily, with very little work involved? If there is, whoever is doing it isn't writing any books about how to do it and selling them for $150 - they're too busy quietly doing it themselves and enjoying their success.
Time after time it seems to be the case that if someone is trying very hard to talk me into spending money to find out how to make money their way...it's a waste of my time AND money.
In fairness, I haven't ordered the program by Russ Dalbey myself, so maybe it's not totally fair to say it's a ripoff. But let's face it...there are way more than just a few people out there saying that's the case in so many words. Common sense kind of tells you that it might be best to avoid that one!
Like I've said before...it's always best to see what you can find on the internet about whatever you're thinking of buying - before you buy it. If it's well-known that something's not a good deal - you'll find out before doing so the hard way.
Sorry to be so negative, or to bust your own bubble about the whole get rich quick subject, but that's what I've found to be true so far. So because of this, even though I'm convinced there is plenty of money to be made on the internet, I think I'd like to steer as far away from the field of "money making advice" as humanly possible when choosing a niche to settle on promoting. I'm starting to feel like I don't even want to be part of it - part of the problem, posing as part of the solution. There are so many products and services out there to be promoted...so why not go into a totally different direction?
That's just my own feeling...there's really nothing wrong with selling money making plans - as long as they really work the way they're advertised. But that's the hard part.
How are your new year's resolutions going so far?
I'm not really very big on actual new year's resolutions myself, but I do always feel like the start of the new year is a great time to re-evaluate your goals and plans. So if you realize you've been drifting away from focusing on what's important, it's a good time to get back on track.
One of my usual goals is to continue to research new ways to make money, and this year is no different in that way. But I also have to be careful not to be TOO open-minded about money making schemes that are being advertised. As negative as it sounds, most of them are either just not worth the money they cost, or worse - even downright ripoffs.
For example...
Just yesterday I spent my whole lunch hour reading one of those little booklets that's really just a big sales pitch for a money making program. In this case, it was titled "The Overnight Millionaire", by Russ Dalbey. I get these from him every so often, and I had seen some derogatory comments about his products before, so I usually just throw them out. But here it is, Happy New Year time, so I thought I'd read this one anyway.
Before long, it sounded so good that I had halfway decided to order the thing. (For about $150.) But when I got back to work I took a quick look on Google to see what I might find about it.
Turns out, this guy was a genuine scam artist and eventually was sued and court ordered to stop all the infomercials that were selling the program.
Needless to say, instantly the temptation to order it was gone! Although, replacing it was the rather depressing realization that the existence of easy, get rich quick plans that you can buy and put into action immediately is probably just a total hoax.
It's almost like, is there no truth being sold out there? Is there really no way to make a lot of money easily, with very little work involved? If there is, whoever is doing it isn't writing any books about how to do it and selling them for $150 - they're too busy quietly doing it themselves and enjoying their success.
Time after time it seems to be the case that if someone is trying very hard to talk me into spending money to find out how to make money their way...it's a waste of my time AND money.
In fairness, I haven't ordered the program by Russ Dalbey myself, so maybe it's not totally fair to say it's a ripoff. But let's face it...there are way more than just a few people out there saying that's the case in so many words. Common sense kind of tells you that it might be best to avoid that one!
Like I've said before...it's always best to see what you can find on the internet about whatever you're thinking of buying - before you buy it. If it's well-known that something's not a good deal - you'll find out before doing so the hard way.
Sorry to be so negative, or to bust your own bubble about the whole get rich quick subject, but that's what I've found to be true so far. So because of this, even though I'm convinced there is plenty of money to be made on the internet, I think I'd like to steer as far away from the field of "money making advice" as humanly possible when choosing a niche to settle on promoting. I'm starting to feel like I don't even want to be part of it - part of the problem, posing as part of the solution. There are so many products and services out there to be promoted...so why not go into a totally different direction?
That's just my own feeling...there's really nothing wrong with selling money making plans - as long as they really work the way they're advertised. But that's the hard part.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Holiday Greetings!
It only seems right at this time of year to stop and wish all of you and yours a Merry Christmas/Happy Holiday Season and a Happy and Prosperous New Year ahead!
Myspace Comments
Friday, December 14, 2007
Got My First Ever Check From ClickBank!
I got an early Christmas present from ClickBank - my first ever check from them! I say it's a gift because I didn't figure I'd receive it until I got a few more orders from different credit cards, as their terms of service states. Unless I've missed something, I thought I wouldn't receive a check until that happens, regardless of the size of my balance, but I guess there's must something about this gift giving time of year.
Hey, it seems only fair anyway...I've had my account for over a year, and I certainly haven't caused them any trouble as far as disputes with customers or anything like that, so I think I deserve to be paid what they've owed me for quite a few months anyway. Especially since those inactivity fees were going to start eating away at what little I had coming to me before long.
My last sale was about seven months ago, so I'm not sure what caused them to write the check, but I'm certainly not complaining! I do wonder though if this means from here on I can be paid immediately on reaching my payment threshhold. That would be nice to know, but I guess I'll find that out when I get a few more sales. For now though, I'll certainly accept this little unexpected surprise!
Hey, it seems only fair anyway...I've had my account for over a year, and I certainly haven't caused them any trouble as far as disputes with customers or anything like that, so I think I deserve to be paid what they've owed me for quite a few months anyway. Especially since those inactivity fees were going to start eating away at what little I had coming to me before long.
My last sale was about seven months ago, so I'm not sure what caused them to write the check, but I'm certainly not complaining! I do wonder though if this means from here on I can be paid immediately on reaching my payment threshhold. That would be nice to know, but I guess I'll find that out when I get a few more sales. For now though, I'll certainly accept this little unexpected surprise!
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Blog Improvements Underway
I was lucky enough to stumble on a great blog recently when the author was offering to do a review of your blog if you were one of the first 3 to respond to his post. I was the third. Shortly after that he kept his word and posted a very candid review of this very blog, offering several major ideas for improvement.
I had almost forgotten about the whole thing until I got the email saying he responded, so I had never even stopped to wonder what he might have to say. He got right down to business though, immediately pointing out several common "beginner" mistakes I've made, and outlining the improvements he would advise to be made.
Maybe I was expecting just another, "Yeah, that's nice" kind of response, but he really took this seriously and offered some blunt, no-nonsense, almost step-by-step instructions on how to make this site more appealing to you, the reader.
I really appreciated that. It was nice to finally get some honest, impartial advice from someone who's an experienced and successful blogger. So as shocking as it was to hear that I had made so many obviously newbie mistakes, (no coincidence there, either!) it was nice to get pointed in the right direction.
I mean, I never really set out to create a "successful" blog here with this...it was more like just a place to record my own thoughts as I go about experimenting with my little internet business ideas. But if you're going to do something, whatever it may be, you might as well strive to do it well...so I don't see any reasons NOT to use the ideas he offered to make this a better blog. I've already added a profile description, as he recommended. (And moved those irresistable little AdSense ads a bit further down the page!) And I plan to make the other changes as I'm able, as well.
So if this blog begins to look a little different, maybe you'll be noticing along with quite a few more readers if it works out well! Or it might not even be noticeable, who knows? Feel free to let me know what YOU think of this blog too...I kind of enjoy getting the feedback, and I'd be glad to do the same for your own blog, too.
Thanks for reading!
John
I had almost forgotten about the whole thing until I got the email saying he responded, so I had never even stopped to wonder what he might have to say. He got right down to business though, immediately pointing out several common "beginner" mistakes I've made, and outlining the improvements he would advise to be made.
Maybe I was expecting just another, "Yeah, that's nice" kind of response, but he really took this seriously and offered some blunt, no-nonsense, almost step-by-step instructions on how to make this site more appealing to you, the reader.
I really appreciated that. It was nice to finally get some honest, impartial advice from someone who's an experienced and successful blogger. So as shocking as it was to hear that I had made so many obviously newbie mistakes, (no coincidence there, either!) it was nice to get pointed in the right direction.
I mean, I never really set out to create a "successful" blog here with this...it was more like just a place to record my own thoughts as I go about experimenting with my little internet business ideas. But if you're going to do something, whatever it may be, you might as well strive to do it well...so I don't see any reasons NOT to use the ideas he offered to make this a better blog. I've already added a profile description, as he recommended. (And moved those irresistable little AdSense ads a bit further down the page!) And I plan to make the other changes as I'm able, as well.
So if this blog begins to look a little different, maybe you'll be noticing along with quite a few more readers if it works out well! Or it might not even be noticeable, who knows? Feel free to let me know what YOU think of this blog too...I kind of enjoy getting the feedback, and I'd be glad to do the same for your own blog, too.
Thanks for reading!
John
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Getting ClickBank Affiliates
A recent reader found my blog by searching Google for "getting ClickBank affiliates", so I'd like to address that here today. I like to follow the readers' lead when possible, and write about what people hope to find here.
ClickBank has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000+ registered affiliates waiting to promote their products, so that is definitely the #1 place to go to find affiliates to sell for you. It seems counter-productive to try competing with the mighty ClickBank website itself, so I would suggest to just let it do the work for you. Afterall, that's what it was designed for.
So I think the key is to make sure your ClickBank Marketplace listing is order, being well written and correctly describing your product. If that is already the case, and your product is, in fact, something fairly well in demand, the affiliate recruiting should pretty much take care of itself.
And it shouldn't take long to get started either, since many ClickBank affiliates often choose to promote the very newest products available. The idea is to get a head start against their competition. If a product is fairly popular, there is usually lots of competition among the affiliates before long.
Outside of this, most sites include an affiliate link to offer the opportunity to promote the product using ClickBank. If your site already gets a substantial amount of traffic, this is probably something you want to include to attract the most affiliates you can.
If you've already done all this and still aren't seeing many affiliates getting involved...you may want to try raising your commission percentage offered. ClickBank now allows you to offer as high as 75% commissions. That might sound like a lot to give back, but remember that each sale from an affiliate's efforts is a sale you wouldn't have had otherwise - and you got it with no effort on your part.
I'm not really an expert on this subject, since I've only been on the affiliate side of the fence since I've been involved with ClickBank. But their website gives you all the details you need to get started as a seller. That's what's great about ClickBank - they make the whole process easy.
If you haven't already registered as a seller with ClickBank, you can find step by step instructions on how to do so, including frequently asked questions and answers right here: www.ClickBank.com/Sell_Products
Hope this helps when you're ready to unleash the next big ClickBank best-seller onto the internet!
ClickBank has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000+ registered affiliates waiting to promote their products, so that is definitely the #1 place to go to find affiliates to sell for you. It seems counter-productive to try competing with the mighty ClickBank website itself, so I would suggest to just let it do the work for you. Afterall, that's what it was designed for.
So I think the key is to make sure your ClickBank Marketplace listing is order, being well written and correctly describing your product. If that is already the case, and your product is, in fact, something fairly well in demand, the affiliate recruiting should pretty much take care of itself.
And it shouldn't take long to get started either, since many ClickBank affiliates often choose to promote the very newest products available. The idea is to get a head start against their competition. If a product is fairly popular, there is usually lots of competition among the affiliates before long.
Outside of this, most sites include an affiliate link to offer the opportunity to promote the product using ClickBank. If your site already gets a substantial amount of traffic, this is probably something you want to include to attract the most affiliates you can.
If you've already done all this and still aren't seeing many affiliates getting involved...you may want to try raising your commission percentage offered. ClickBank now allows you to offer as high as 75% commissions. That might sound like a lot to give back, but remember that each sale from an affiliate's efforts is a sale you wouldn't have had otherwise - and you got it with no effort on your part.
I'm not really an expert on this subject, since I've only been on the affiliate side of the fence since I've been involved with ClickBank. But their website gives you all the details you need to get started as a seller. That's what's great about ClickBank - they make the whole process easy.
If you haven't already registered as a seller with ClickBank, you can find step by step instructions on how to do so, including frequently asked questions and answers right here: www.ClickBank.com/Sell_Products
Hope this helps when you're ready to unleash the next big ClickBank best-seller onto the internet!
Friday, October 12, 2007
Totally (Really) Free Online Classified Ads
If you're looking for some totally cost free online classified ads websites to advertise on, here's a good list to start with.
I can't say I've actually tried these all yet myself, but I just clicked on every one to make sure they're still up and running. After removing a few that were either invalid, parked pages or just something other than totally free, these were the sites that remained.
These sites appear to be good for getting some totally free classified ads on the web. Give them a try, and good luck with your promotions!
http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/
http://www.craigslist.net/
http://www.hyt.com/
http://www.usfreeads.com/
http://www.recycler.com/
http://www.inetgiant.com/
www.1second.com/1america.htm
http://www.citynews.com/
http://www.theadnet.com/
http://www.epage.com/
http://www.backpage.com/
http://www.freeclassifiedads.com/
http://www.bestmall.com/class/
I can't say I've actually tried these all yet myself, but I just clicked on every one to make sure they're still up and running. After removing a few that were either invalid, parked pages or just something other than totally free, these were the sites that remained.
These sites appear to be good for getting some totally free classified ads on the web. Give them a try, and good luck with your promotions!
http://www.classifiedsforfree.com/
http://www.craigslist.net/
http://www.hyt.com/
http://www.usfreeads.com/
http://www.recycler.com/
http://www.inetgiant.com/
www.1second.com/1america.htm
http://www.citynews.com/
http://www.theadnet.com/
http://www.epage.com/
http://www.backpage.com/
http://www.freeclassifiedads.com/
http://www.bestmall.com/class/
Monday, September 10, 2007
Free Keyword Research Tools
Have you been searching for some free keyword research tools to use - ones that actually work well too? I've posted a few on this blog as I've come across them, but I'm still finding more. So I think this calls for a page to list them all on so they'll be handy to find all in one place.
I'll update this post as I find more to include every so often. And I'll put a link to this page over on the sidebar so this will always be easy to find...for myself as well as you, the readers! (There are at least a few of you out there I hope!)
Please comment or email me if you find that any of these are no longer valid, or if you know of any others that work well that we could add. Thanks in advance!
Here's the list...
WordTracker: (The FREE version)
https://www.wordtracker.com/
Keyword Discovery, from Trellian (The free keyword search tool - seems to work pretty well)
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
Google Keyword Tool:
https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool (You need to register for this one, but it's free)
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
Google Trends (Most popular recent searches on Google)
http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends
Try them all and see which ones you like best. You've got nothing to lose - but lots of good, targeted traffic to gain if you choose the right keywords for your sites! And come on back here if you need to find the best free keyword research tools to use again. Good luck with your searching!
I'll update this post as I find more to include every so often. And I'll put a link to this page over on the sidebar so this will always be easy to find...for myself as well as you, the readers! (There are at least a few of you out there I hope!)
Please comment or email me if you find that any of these are no longer valid, or if you know of any others that work well that we could add. Thanks in advance!
Here's the list...
WordTracker: (The FREE version)
https://www.wordtracker.com/
Keyword Discovery, from Trellian (The free keyword search tool - seems to work pretty well)
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
Google Keyword Tool:
https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool (You need to register for this one, but it's free)
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
Google Trends (Most popular recent searches on Google)
http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends
Try them all and see which ones you like best. You've got nothing to lose - but lots of good, targeted traffic to gain if you choose the right keywords for your sites! And come on back here if you need to find the best free keyword research tools to use again. Good luck with your searching!
Friday, July 13, 2007
A Google Indexing Surprise
Here's something I find pretty amazing. There are lots of articles all over the internet on how to obtain a high ranking in Google, and it usually involves building lots and lots of backlinks that point to your own site. So people endlessly write articles and place them on the articles websites, and post blog comments and forum posts which include a link to their own site...all done in the hope that someday their site will be ranked in Google because of this. Well, something just happened to me that makes it appear that it doesn't matter so much how MANY backlinks you have as much as the quality of the websites that you have the backlinks from.
I have a very small and simple blog I've set up to help me sell items in the local newspaper. A few posts ago I mentioned this, and the only attention it ever got was from the newspaper readers who saw it in the ad. Then of course the newspaper stopped allowing websites to be listed in the free classified ads, so I got a little discouraged because that ended what I thought was a great idea. I didn't get nearly the number of hits when I only included a phone number in the ad and mentioned the domain name on my phone's voice mail.
Then I tried selling a couple of items on http://www.craigslist.com/, where you can apparently include a link to your own website in your ads. I was a little disappointed in the results because although my sales blog got it's share of instant traffic after listing the ads, it still wasn't resulting in any Google AdSense ad clicks, which I had hoped for. However, something unexpected came out of this, just a week or so after I posted those Craiglist ads.
I checked my blog's stats on http://www.statcounter.com/ and was very surprised to see that one of the hits was referred by none other than Google itself! I knew that meant that the page had somehow been indexed by Google! And it has, as of today anyway when I checked. So with no backlinks at all other than the ones (I think a total of just 2) from Craiglist, my little blog site has been included in the mighty Google's listings! Someone had apparently entered "220 volt air conditioner for sale Delaware"as their search request, and it gave them a list of sites, with mine being #2 on the list! (Second only to a listing on the University of Delaware website.)
This is pretty amazing! I was under the impression that Google wouldn't find and include your site unless you had a certain (fairly large) number of sites which link back to it...but this is obviously not true.
So fear not, aspiring web masters...it's not nearly as difficult to crack into those elusive Google listings as most of us thought! I don't know in how many cases it would be appropriate to place a link to your own website in a classified ad on Craigslist, but the point is that this is a high traffic website, and evidently just one high traffic website linking to your own is enough to get Google's attention. And that was news to me!
I have a very small and simple blog I've set up to help me sell items in the local newspaper. A few posts ago I mentioned this, and the only attention it ever got was from the newspaper readers who saw it in the ad. Then of course the newspaper stopped allowing websites to be listed in the free classified ads, so I got a little discouraged because that ended what I thought was a great idea. I didn't get nearly the number of hits when I only included a phone number in the ad and mentioned the domain name on my phone's voice mail.
Then I tried selling a couple of items on http://www.craigslist.com/, where you can apparently include a link to your own website in your ads. I was a little disappointed in the results because although my sales blog got it's share of instant traffic after listing the ads, it still wasn't resulting in any Google AdSense ad clicks, which I had hoped for. However, something unexpected came out of this, just a week or so after I posted those Craiglist ads.
I checked my blog's stats on http://www.statcounter.com/ and was very surprised to see that one of the hits was referred by none other than Google itself! I knew that meant that the page had somehow been indexed by Google! And it has, as of today anyway when I checked. So with no backlinks at all other than the ones (I think a total of just 2) from Craiglist, my little blog site has been included in the mighty Google's listings! Someone had apparently entered "220 volt air conditioner for sale Delaware"as their search request, and it gave them a list of sites, with mine being #2 on the list! (Second only to a listing on the University of Delaware website.)
This is pretty amazing! I was under the impression that Google wouldn't find and include your site unless you had a certain (fairly large) number of sites which link back to it...but this is obviously not true.
So fear not, aspiring web masters...it's not nearly as difficult to crack into those elusive Google listings as most of us thought! I don't know in how many cases it would be appropriate to place a link to your own website in a classified ad on Craigslist, but the point is that this is a high traffic website, and evidently just one high traffic website linking to your own is enough to get Google's attention. And that was news to me!
Friday, July 06, 2007
TinyURL, The Free URL Shortening Service
When you're promoting ClickBank products or other affiliate deals, sometimes those affiliate links can be rather lengthy. Too lengthy to even be readable in some emails, forum posts, etc. So there are lots of free services you can use that actually forward to your link from a different address to allow you to have a shorter url to use.
One of the most popular free link shortening services is http://www.tinyurl.com/. I had seen it before many times but never actually tried it until now, and I was suprised how easy it is to use. Like I said, you'll find lots of free services like this if you do a search, but this one doesn't force your readers to see any ads before your own page, which I've noticed some do. And since it's so popular it seems to make sense that it should be reliable as well. Plus, it always gives you a url that ends up being, true to their name, pretty darn tiny! Be aware that it doesn't actually HIDE your true url - that's actually considered "link cloaking" and is a little more involved - but it does allow people to access your link by just using the shorter one it sets up for you.
If you'd like to try it out, I've put a toolbar right at the top of this page to make it easy to find and use. And it is totally free to use, which you've just gotta love! Can you imagine how many hits that site must get? They state that it's in the hundreds of thousands of hits per month, so that could add up to quite an interesting little Google AdSense check each month for them I'll bet! Must be nice, huh?!
One of the most popular free link shortening services is http://www.tinyurl.com/. I had seen it before many times but never actually tried it until now, and I was suprised how easy it is to use. Like I said, you'll find lots of free services like this if you do a search, but this one doesn't force your readers to see any ads before your own page, which I've noticed some do. And since it's so popular it seems to make sense that it should be reliable as well. Plus, it always gives you a url that ends up being, true to their name, pretty darn tiny! Be aware that it doesn't actually HIDE your true url - that's actually considered "link cloaking" and is a little more involved - but it does allow people to access your link by just using the shorter one it sets up for you.
If you'd like to try it out, I've put a toolbar right at the top of this page to make it easy to find and use. And it is totally free to use, which you've just gotta love! Can you imagine how many hits that site must get? They state that it's in the hundreds of thousands of hits per month, so that could add up to quite an interesting little Google AdSense check each month for them I'll bet! Must be nice, huh?!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Impatience Part 2
One of my main focuses with this blog has always been using free, or almost free, alternatives wherever possible, and I'm still sticking with that philosophy. It's just that it gets frustrating sometimes how slow things seem to happen when you settle for these little free "experiment" type things I've been trying lately. You can't argue with the price when things don't cost you anything at all, but sometimes I think I should just start using some forms of paid advertising to make some things happen faster. I guess there probably is some truth to the "you get what you pay for" saying, and that's probably quite true in the realm of advertising! Maybe not always, but probably quite often I'll admit, even though I continue to test the possibilities!
All of the sudden I seem to have quite a few things on my mind that I'm anxious to get involved in and try. I usually like to stick to the one thing at a time rule, but I've recently stumbled into a few different things that I'm eager to try out, so I guess I'll be writing about them soon...probably one at a time though! Stay tuned!
All of the sudden I seem to have quite a few things on my mind that I'm anxious to get involved in and try. I usually like to stick to the one thing at a time rule, but I've recently stumbled into a few different things that I'm eager to try out, so I guess I'll be writing about them soon...probably one at a time though! Stay tuned!
Monday, June 18, 2007
Impatience
It's great that it doesn't cost anything to try this little blog promotion experiment I've described in my last couple of posts, but it's just not creating any meaningful results. The site is getting some traffic, but it seems to be falling off from what it got earlier. So this is starting to seem like more of a waste of time than anything else. I mean, it's pretty clear that I won't be acquiring any great wealth by using my time in this way, so I don't know how much longer I'll stick with it just to get one more sale before I call it quits. Maybe it's actually mostly the same circle of people that look at those profiles on that site or something, which would be tough to prove, but that's one possibility I guess.
Whatever it is, the traffic doesn't seem to want to purchase anything...just look at pictures or videos or whatever is posted. I'm sure that, with persistence, some sales would eventually be made...but it's not the best use of my time to keep striving for. And even though the Google ads that appear on the site are relevent and seem to be just what I would want displayed, they're not earning anything either. I guess I just have to chalk it up to beginner's luck that I earned that sale the very first day I started the promotional profile, so at least I do have that to show for my efforts.
Whatever it is, the traffic doesn't seem to want to purchase anything...just look at pictures or videos or whatever is posted. I'm sure that, with persistence, some sales would eventually be made...but it's not the best use of my time to keep striving for. And even though the Google ads that appear on the site are relevent and seem to be just what I would want displayed, they're not earning anything either. I guess I just have to chalk it up to beginner's luck that I earned that sale the very first day I started the promotional profile, so at least I do have that to show for my efforts.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Another Sneaky Experiment
Taking the idea in my last post another step further, I did create a blog to send visitors to the networking site profile to, rather than just linking directly to my ClickBank links. This way I can at least get an idea of how much traffic that profile is really creating. As I described in my last post, it's just a very simple profile I created using a public domain photo of an attractive young lady, and now it includes a link to what is supposed to be her own personal blog site. (When I say sneaky I mean it, don't I?!) Hey, it's just a little experiment to satisfy my curiousity really, and I don't plan on leaving it up for very long...unless of course it suddenly starts making money hand over fist or something! (Hasn't so far!)
It does seem to get quite a bit of quick traffic right after any kind of a post is made on the site it's part of. But in the week or so I've been trying this, I've noticed that the traffic pretty much stops after the post has run it's course. So if you don't post anything for a day, there's no traffic, since that's the only source there is. But it's a good test because of that.
On that site I've included a whole string of ClickBank links promoting various dating success tips that are available, and of course the google ads. There's only a single actual blog post, which just serves as an introduction really, and is written to imply that there will be more to come. Pretty easy to thow together really, and best of all...free! Might be just an amusing little waste of time, but I'll let you know how it goes.
It does seem to get quite a bit of quick traffic right after any kind of a post is made on the site it's part of. But in the week or so I've been trying this, I've noticed that the traffic pretty much stops after the post has run it's course. So if you don't post anything for a day, there's no traffic, since that's the only source there is. But it's a good test because of that.
On that site I've included a whole string of ClickBank links promoting various dating success tips that are available, and of course the google ads. There's only a single actual blog post, which just serves as an introduction really, and is written to imply that there will be more to come. Pretty easy to thow together really, and best of all...free! Might be just an amusing little waste of time, but I'll let you know how it goes.
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